


to the water we return

by wolframvonbielefeld (maknaeline)



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Liberal Use of Free!-esque Metaphors, M/M, Matsuoka curse, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 01:17:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15450177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maknaeline/pseuds/wolframvonbielefeld
Summary: Rin has always known he is living on borrowed time. That doesn't stop him. Mostly.





	to the water we return

**Author's Note:**

> This is a super experimental thing, written for the RH Discord as a warm-up to whatever Free! fics follow this year. It's been a long time since I wrote for the fandom, but I'm glad to be back!
> 
> Please heed the warnings. Suicidal thoughts are implied, but they're very much a thing.

Rin is seven, and Mother never talks about his conception dream.

He knew what his was, of course. Their grandmother always said Matsuoka women got the same one every single time. Gou, with her refusal to swim professionally, was in no danger - her dream, too would have been different. Mother would know all too well that a reminder never helped, though.

"It doesn't matter, Rin," Grandmother had said. He remembers her braid, the way it curled around her shoulders and fell to her waist, how Rin used to comb it whenever Gou was asleep. "All of us are bound to the water in ways we do not understand. It gives us life, and it takes it away."

There were problems. For one, Rin did not understand how water could take anything away when it gave him so much.

But that was before the storm. It was the first life lesson he remembered grasping as a concept, grasping Gou's little hand in his and wondering when it was his turn.

Gou hits him later, for bringing it up. "You're not allowed to talk about it," she gasps. "No. Not again."

He knows better, though, remembering the clock over the mantel that stopped, that had to be started again. The world kept spinning, the sun kept shining.

He knows, one day, that he will return to the water.

_What you love will hurt you._

*

Rin is eleven, and a boy has beaten him in a race. He swims like he belongs in the water, like he is one with it. A _mermaid_.

"He must be a mizuchi," Grandmother says later, when he narrates it to her with excitement, and twinkles at him when he starts to giggle. "Be careful, Rin, they will steal your _shirikodama_."

"They'll steal your heart, oniichan," Gou says, eyes wide and serious. "I read about it!"

"Nanase isn't a water spirit, he's just fast!" Rin insists, laughing at them both. "He's - he's like water himself. I'm going to race him again!"

He does not see the look Grandmother aims at Miyako, how Mother looks back at her, shaking her head fondly. Even if he did, he would not have understood then.

_What you love will make you better._

*

Rin is thirteen. Nanase, Makoto, Nagisa and Sousuke feel far away, when he looks at his swimming times. Further and further, into a distance he cannot see. He writes letters and doesn't send them. He writes letters, and sends them to all the wrong people.

Lori puts a hand on his head, and kisses his forehead when he's half-asleep with Winnie on the grass. He is exhausted, but grateful. This, too, shall pass.

Grandmother used to say - If you do not dive deep, you will not find pearls. It is another life lesson, but one tucked into the edge of memory before he has learned to spell, something she says rarely but with meaning. He remembers it now, and dreams of Haruka, a mermaid waiting for him at the bottom of the ocean in a little oyster shell, who smiles at him and says, _Come, Rin, what took you so long?_

He wakes up with his name on his lips, flushed, and Lori laughs at his face.

"Is it that boy, with the eyes as clear as water?" she teases. "You never told us his name."

_What you love is worth the effort._

*

Rin is thirteen. The boy he has left behind is so much brighter - but he can't see him anymore. He is running in the snow outside, tears freezing almost on his cheeks. He thinks of water, and of drowning, and wonders if this is his new life lesson.

_What you love will reject you._

*

Rin is seventeen, and does not fear death. He longs for someone in the beyond, and wonders when the curse takes effect. Once he had talked about pools filled with the transience of life, his friends blissfully oblivious to the irony of his statement.

But Rin never swims for himself anymore. He swims for someone who couldn't, someone who will not come back. He refuses to face it, not before his knees give out in the water, his elbows slipping, tear tracks down his cheeks.

He screams at Haruka, who cradles him with his legs and his entire heart and tells him to swim with him, with _him_ , _with_ him. Rin's brain is a broken record, a loop in the timeline, and Haruka could have leaned in to kiss him and he would not have cared. He feels ashamed and exposed, and Haruka never says a word, hand on his back solid as they trudge forward towards the pool.

_(What you love will understand you.)_

*

Rin is eighteen when Haru shows him the pool full of flowers. He laughs in the rain, and wonders when he stopped thinking about death, and started thinking about life.

*

Haruka's face, dark and shadowed - "What dream?" he asks.

_What future?_

Rin would like to know, too. He walks away, and thinks about his own borrowed time, and all he has to give before that.

Haru's grandmother had said something similar to him, something he had heard from Makoto once while land training. Something about people living on borrowed time. A prodigy at ten, a genius at fifteen, and at twenty -

At twenty, Haru claimed, he'd be ordinary.

 _When Haru's twenty,_ Rin thinks, _I'll be dead._

Rin has lived his life in split-seconds, inside and outside the water. He is a creature of impulse decisions and heart. When he books the ticket, Sousuke doesn't even blink an eyelash.

"That bag makes my shoulders hurt just looking at it," is all he says, when he's done packing. "Please leave Nanase intact."

Rin bites his lip, and lets the innuendo slide. That's all he does these days. Maybe if he goes into denial, it won't exist. Haruka deserves better than that. Than him.

Summer has never made him so vulnerable before, but this is Australia, and Haruka is curled into himself on the beach like a lily ensconced inside its pads. Rin feels like a touch from him would make him wither.

Instead, Rin tells him about his childhood, and Haruka blooms. His heart hurts when he's done. Haruka looks at him like he's been lost and Rin has what he was looking for, and Rin wants to scream that he's out of time, that this is all wrong.

When Rin talks about his dreams that night, his back to Haruka in the same bed, he has never felt further away. He wishes he could have his crisis at a better time, when it was all he could do to not turn around and press his face to Haruka's hair, to feel his lips like a brand against his skin.

He doesn't do anything.

_(What you love, you will let go.)_

*

Rin is twenty, and nothing happens.

All things considered, he's lived a fulfilling life, so it's time to pack.

He doesn't talk to his mother. He doesn't talk to his sister, or Sousuke. He stops taking Makoto's calls, ignores his phone that has been ringing since morning. He has a plan - one that involves no one but himself and the ocean. He wonders if the clock has stopped today, in the house, if they know -

Haruka catches him as soon as he steps outside.

"What are you _doing?!_ " he yells, and Rin is struck by the hilarity of it all, that before he catches up to the water, it catches up to him.

"Dying on my own terms," he tells him calmly, and Haruka kisses him.

And - and, _oh_. This is what he has been alive for, for all these years, every single failure and triumph has led up to this moment. Rin has never drowned, but this feels like it, like sinking into something he has never allowed himself to have, will never have again.

They break apart and Rin chases Haruka's mouth, and Haruka lets him, for once - and there's tongue on his lower lip, and Rin almost collapses against the doorframe. Vaguely, he is aware that they're in public, and that they should be avoiding paparazzi - but Haruka -

"I know, and it doesn't matter," Haruka says, and Rin's brain shuts down.

He blinks. The world keeps spinning. The sun is shining, and there are tears on Haruka's face that look suspiciously like they didn't come from Rin.

"What?" he asks weakly.

"I _know_ about the curse," Haruka says, and before Rin can even process the ramifications of that, he keeps talking. "I've known for a while now, and Rin - it doesn't matter to me. I'm not -"

"Haru-" he tries, and Haruka shuts him up again, with a third kiss, which feels like its seared into his lips.

"*No.*" Haruka says vehemently. "The water cannot have you." A fourth kiss, that makes Rin's knees go weak, Haruka's right hand braced against the door and the other on his cheek. This one is gentle, and it hurts more than any of them so far.

"Haru, we've -" he breathes, batting Haruka's face away. "I tried, okay? My grandmother - my mother -"

"Rin," Haruka says. "Do you love the water?"

He blinks again. The question is loaded. He thinks, abruptly, of Natsume Souseki, of an essay written in elementary school. Haruka's eyes are shining.

"Yes," he says, and Haruka smiles, eyes glittering like water back in Iwatobi.

"Then we'll go," Haruka says. "Together."

Rin's heart thuds. "Together?"

Haruka turns, and smiles wryly. "Isn't it obvious? We're going swimming."

*

Rin is twenty one when he kisses the Olympic gold medalist for 200m individual freestyle. The story makes the headlines, promising an exclusive interview from the budding 200m individual butterfly gold medalist, even as his boyfriend declines to comment on their very public display of affection.

"We only answer questions about one kind of swimming, sorry!" says Haruka's quote, dry and witty, even as the picture has his hand snaked around Rin's hip.

Perhaps there were sadder ways to let the world know that you were taken by the water, but those were for people not in love with Nanase Haruka.

*

(What you love will love you back)

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
>  
> 
> Leave your own theories for the sequel in the comments xoxo.


End file.
